Thursday 25 May 2017

Seven Mile Beach to Lauderdale 2017

Today we're walking from Seven Mile Beach, around the Lauderdale and Roches Beach area. Tas has volunteered to lead as he had done so the last time we were here.

We park at the end of Seven Mile Beach Rd., next to the beach. It's supposed to rain today, but at the moment it's just overcast. Besides, it's the eastern shore and we all know the weather here is always fine.

We take up the entire parking area

Southern end of Seven Mile Beach
We walk to the track start. The large hill in the distance is Single Hill. We'll have a closer view later.




I'm not sure why most of the shells on the beach are black. It's an interesting beach to walk on as there are many different shells and sponges to see.

A reminder we're not far from the optimistically named Hobart International Airport

Start of the track


Seven Mile Beach
The track takes us along the coast. Soon we reach a section where council workmen are refurbishing it with new gravel.

Mays Point in the distance

New gravel



We pass by a few properties and the one below always caught my eye in the past. I don't think it's old, just looks it.




Soon we head right up hill which eventually take us near the top of Single Hill, but before then, Morning Tea beckons.

A good sized log provides plenty of seating. I did warn everyone I was going to take a photo and not to do anything embarrassing, so my conscience is clear.

Morning Tea

Refreshed, we continue our climb. If you want to impress yourself, look at the graph at the end of the blog.


Lauderdale down below



Single Hill ahead
Unfortunately, it's still private property so we turn left and roughly follow the fence line down.

I seem to remember that the council was going to try and take over the top and establish tracks and that the owner at the time was in favour of this, but that was a couple of years ago and nothing appears to have happened since.

Heading down


More than a few horses live in this area



We cross over the Axiom Way to find our way to Five Ways Corner, where we head left.


We're on flat ground now with wide horse trails and it's very easy walking.

Taking the old Monmouth Track back over the Axiom Way, we're heading to Roches Beach for lunch. There is some road walking, but as it's horse country the verges are usually quite wide.


Our destination is a sheltered picnic table we know from past walks that's located next to the entrance of the Lauderdale Yacht Club. Unfortunately, on arrival we find it occupied by a couple and their Golden Retriever who show no signs of moving.

I suggested forming a silent circle around them to see if we could change their minds, but we decided in the interest of public relations we'd just head for the beach and sit on the sand.

This we did. Now, I mentioned at the beginning that the weather forecast was a bit iffy, but so far, we've had no rain. It wasn't until we sat down on the dunes and the sun came out that it began to sprinkle. It wasn't much, but after lunch it did pickup for a short time, just long enough to get me to put on a rain jacket.

Before then though, it did provide some good rainbows to watch during lunch.

Roches Beach. Packed as usual

Lunch will be on those dunes to the left

Nature provided a double rainbow for our enjoyment

After lunch, we continued along the beach to the second set of steps that will take us back to the coastal track we walked earlier.

Tas stepping out with purpose



Black shells make interesting patterns on these rocks

Back on track and it's raining lightly now
We make our way back and the rain stops before long. Soon we reach the steps we had climbed in the start of our walk.

Isolated little beach

Back to Seven Mile Beach


We had 15 walkers and covered 10.67km in 3:38hrs. The weather generally held off and it was a good day for a walk. On returning to the cars, I found the outside temperature was 17C which explains why I was so warm inside my rain jacket.

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